Peer-reviewed article
Climate Change and Child Marriage: Evidence from Bangladesh
Sigma Ainul, Jyotirmoy Saha, Sharif Hossain, Sajeda Amin ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines how environmental vulnerability in Bangladesh affects child marriage rates among adolescent girls. Researchers measured environmental vulnerability in 240 rural communities using indicators like cyclones, flooding, and waterlogging, then linked this data to surveys of 15,000 adolescent girls. The findings show that communities affected by slow-onset environmental problems like waterlogging and salinity have significantly higher rates of child marriage, while areas hit by rapid-onset disasters like floods and cyclones do not show increased risk.
Key points
- Coastal communities with prolonged waterlogging and salinity have significantly higher child marriage rates
- Rapid-onset disasters (floods, cyclones) show no evidence of increasing child marriage risk
- Slow-onset environmental factors affect marriage through longer-term impacts on livelihoods
- Environmental vulnerability varies in its impact on child marriage depending on the type of disaster
- Programs must address child marriage risk in areas with climate-induced slow-onset disasters, not just emergency-affected areas
Limitations
The study is observational and cannot establish causation, only associations between environmental vulnerability and child marriage rates. The analysis focuses on specific types of environmental vulnerability in Bangladesh and may not generalise to other contexts or to rapid-onset disasters in other settings.
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of environmental vulnerability on the risk of child marriage in Bangladesh. Community vulnerability measures are constructed for 240 rural communities in eight districts according to the presence of three indicators of environmental vulnerability—history of cyclones, flooding, and waterlogging. Community data are linked to individual-level adolescent survey data from a representative sample of 15,000 adolescent girls in those communities. Types of environmental vulnerability and the effect on adolescent girls’ marriage outcomes have been explored using discrete time survival analysis. Results show that coastal communities with prolonged waterlogging and salinity have significantly higher child marriage rates, and there is no evidence of higher risks of child marriage in flood-affected areas. The paper concludes that slow and rapid onset events vary in their impact on child marriage. It is important to distinguish between rapid onset factors, such as floods and cyclones, and slow and less dramatically visible factors, such as waterlogging, that affect marriage through longer-term impacts on lives and livelihoods. Programs need to cast a wider net to safeguard girls living in the communities not only where immediate and sudden environmental emergencies have occurred but also in the areas where climate-induced disasters may not seem very visible but have slow, cascading effects and pose a risk for child marriage.